


Infinitesimal

by thischarmingand



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (well for an AU), Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, M/M, Power Imbalance, Slow Burn, Vengeance Roadtrip, episode 97 compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23046151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thischarmingand/pseuds/thischarmingand
Summary: “You want me to help you steal from the Cerebus Assembly?” The human lets out a harsh bark of laughter and says something else that hardly needs translation out of his strange, foreign tongue.“You are thinking much too small,” Essek says. “With your talents? I say we burn them all to ash.”Or: In a small clearing in the woods near Vergessen Sanatorium, two wizards meet five years too soon.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 35
Kudos: 238





	1. Scourger, Un-named

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Ancalime, who has custody of the "understanding D&D" braincell 99% of the time in our friendship. (Though full warning, I respect the mechanics of D&D until they limit me in any cool or thematic way and then what's a spell slot?)
> 
> Tags will evolve as this gets more explicitly murdery, but we start as we mean to go on: with imbalanced power dynamics and wizards hanging out in the lower two-thirds of the alignment chart at best. So canon, basically.

> _And did you know that when you really get close  
> _ _Nothing really touches, bro, just kind of floats?_
> 
> –Mother Mother, "[Infinitesimal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Ths1bpQdQ&list=PL3PHdGjLUmJIFQ5KwXnmUJKVOCpcGXh5w&index=40)"

The _vollstrecker_ makes a short, sharp motion not unlike snapping bone, and the elf goes down on one knee. It’s too far from the trees to see his face, but the posture is not good: shoulders slumped, swaying, head lolling his neck.

“Get up,” he hisses, and claps a hand over his mouth when he realizes he’s spoken aloud.

“You should not have come here.” Her voice is raspy, as if something hurts deep in her chest. Broken rib, or something in the lungs. Perhaps a strike to the throat. There are many options which come to mind. This battle was clearly begun long before he found the clearing in the woods. Already, everything spells of spilled magic and fresh blood.

The elf puts a hand up. There’s something small and round in his hand, rolling across his fingertips. He speaks a word in an unfamiliar language and—

Too slow. The _vollstrecker’s_ blade comes down across his wrist and the object scatters in the long grass. She strikes again, catching the elf’s shoulder.

The elf — flickers.

She kicks him in the chest next, not bothering with blades. A cat playing games with its prey. The elf goes sprawling like his spell component before him. This time, the spell drops for good. Gold-brown skin turns purple-black. Sandy hair goes white, save for a shock of bright, bleeding red at the temple.

He’s never seen a drow before.

“In your next life, you should make smarter choices.” She raises a hand, magic brewing in her open palm.

Bren crouches up out of the underbrush just enough to release the firebolt straight into her back.

The _vollstrecker_ staggers forward, the dagger falling from a limp hand. There is a smell of burning hair and —

Screaming.

He comes back to himself when the force of a spell crushes his limbs against his sides and sends him toppling into the dirt.

“Another one of you is it?” The drow has not put his costume back on yet. Up close, Bren can see his face is swollen on the right side. One eye is nearly knotted shut, the carefully shaped eyebrow above matted with blood. “Is there a bounty already? Some prize for the first scourger who brings me back alive?”

So many things are still hazy. But those words he knows. And they burn.

“Not one of them,” he snarls through the magic clenching his jaw.

“Hm,” the drow crouches down, looks him over with an appraising eye and fishes Bren’s pendant, his lifeline, from below his shirt. “Oh, very interesting.”

Bren growls at him, animal and frantic, and thrashes against the bindings of the spell.

“Sssh, none of that.” He straightens, and Bren blinks, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. The grass beneath him flattens slightly, but the drow’s feet don’t touch the ground. “If what appears to be the case here is true, I believe I may have an interesting proposition for you.”

This is how he first meets Essek Thelyss.

* * *

If the human wizard has known better days, they are clearly well behind him now. The man’s brown hair is greasy and lank and the bones in his skull are too visible through the skin of his face. The garments that hang off him are worn thin and yellowed from repeated washings. None of them have pockets or fastenings that Essek can see, save for the laces of his too-big boots. When Essek hauls him to his feet the man snarls again, trying to bare his teeth. Trying. Essek ignores him in favour of shoving up one of his loose, stained sleeves.

The human’s skin is pale, even compared to other light-skinned people Essek has met within the Empire. The scars on his arms stand out more starkly than they had on the scourger he's killed, vivid pink lines slightly raised from the rest of his flesh. He rubs a thumb across a particularly ropey band of scar tissue and the wizard jolts in his grip.

“Alright, alright.” Essek returns his sleeve to its previous place and makes sure he is out of range of teeth before he relaxes a portion of the spell. “How did you escape Vergessen?”

One of the interesting side effects of the immobilization spell: dry mouth. In the time it takes the human to work up the ability to spit, Essek’s already moved out of range. After that comes a series of harsh, jumbled consonant sounds. An Empire language, though not one he’s familiar with. Not that the intonation leaves much room for guesswork.

“They will be searching for you sooner than they will be searching for me,” Essek says, mildly. “What do you think they would do, if they found a failed scourger and a dead one alone together in the woods? Do you think they would believe you if you told them the truth?”

The Common tongue seems to come to him slowly. It is a long moment before the human speaks. “Then why are you still here?”

The places he could begin that answer.

“Because the people who made you have something that is mine. I have asked politely for its return but,” he gestures to his still-throbbing face, “it seems we have come to an impasse. Alternative measures are required.”

“And me?”

“I wonder if these people have taken from you as well.” Essek circles out of his line of sight, and the human’s eyes dart frantically about. “And I wonder if it might please you, to return that favour in kind.”

“You want me to help you steal from the Cerebus Assembly?” The human lets out a harsh bark of laughter, says something else that hardly needs translation from his strange, foreign tongue.

“You are thinking much too small,” Essek says. “With your talents? I say we burn them all to ash.”

For the first time in their conversation, Essek can see him think before he reacts. “All of them?”

“Three for me: Ludinous D'leth. Vess DeRogna. Trent Ikithon. And in exchange, you may add to the list as you like.”

Something terribly cold steals across the man’s face. A glimpse of what once was, perhaps. It’s thrilling. “I believe that list will suffice for me as well.”

“Excellent.” Essek relaxes the remainder of the spell ever so slowly as he circles back into view. The human does not move. Smart of him. “I suppose I should ask you for a name.”

He thinks about it too long. They will have to work on that.

“Widogast,” the wizard says finally. “Caleb Widogast.”

“A pleasure to meet you Widogast,” Essek says. “Cross me and you will not be able to say the same.”

* * *

It would be easier, maybe, if their screams didn’t form words.

They shout for help. Of course they do. To each other first, across the small farmhouse, urging an attempt at this door or that window. _Turn the knob the other way. Can you smash the glass? What if we try together?_ When nothing works they turn their screams outwards, into the warm, clear Zemnian night. The nearest neighbours are more than a mile away. No one will hear. And if they did, no one would come in time. And yet they scream and scream and—

Caleb claps a hand over his mouth before any sound can escape. There’s a faint copper taste on his tongue and a rough, sore spot in his cheek. His shirt is damp against his skin and his pulse is still racing. Just the same as every night since the nameless woman in Vergessen cleared his mind.

Though, circumstantially, there are some differences. The small inn they’d found after nearly a day of walking is cozy and cramped and smells of brewing beer and fresh bread. The bedding is cleaner than he is.

And he has company.

The drow sits in a chair in the corner, hands folded in his lap. His face is relaxed. His eyes are shut. Caleb sits up cautiously and waves in his direction. No reaction.

It takes long, agonizing minutes to slide to the edge of the bed without the slats creaking. Caleb sets his feet on the floor one at a time, cautious. Still no sign of a reaction. And his hands aren’t shaking quite so terribly now.

Gods, what is he doing here?

If there is anyone in the world who knows better than this, it is him. There is no good ending, no satisfaction, nothing but fear and guilt and shame and his own painful death and he is walking towards that with open arms if he follows this man in the corner. And maybe, certainly, he deserves it, but there is no reason to rush to it like an old friend. He could live some time yet. Not well. Not long. But certainly for a greater span than he is likely to get here.

He needs to leave. He should never have come.

There is a soft noise from the floorboards when he stands. Caleb freezes. No movement from the corner.

His boots are on the other side of the room. Not too far from the door. That had been smart — one smart thing in all this foolishness. If the drow weren’t sleeping in it, his jacket would be worth taking too. The asylum clothes will not keep him warm or safe. He’s going to need to steal something. He’s going to need money. He’s going to need—

Caleb takes a step forward. No movement.

The drow wears a dagger on his belt, but carelessly. Caleb had noticed earlier as they walked, how it moved about in its sheath. It is hardly well-secured. It would be easy to slide free.

He has better clothes. Better boots. Money. Components. If Caleb is careful, he could go far by selling off the silver rings on his hands alone. Maybe to the Menagerie Coast. Would anyone look for him there? He has always wanted to see the ocean.

The drow must have a spell book as well. That decides it.

It feels like it takes an hour to cross the room, even as Caleb’s brain keeps tracking the time with a precision he had forgotten he possessed. Four and half actual minutes later and his hand is around the dagger hilt. It slips free as smoothly as he’d expected.

His hands are not even shaking, when he raises the blade to the drow’s throat.

The pressure on his windpipe comes on sudden as a blow. “I gave you a warning.”

Caleb tries to gasp for air and nothing comes. It's not like being choked by hand — whatever is cutting off his airway is blunter, more brutal. Stronger.

Thelyss opens his eyes. Smiles. His incisors are pointier than Caleb remembers. “And we made a deal.”

Caleb grits his teeth and tries to tamp down rising panic. When he shifts his weight forward, the edge of the blade is a hair’s breadth away from biting into skin, even with his fingers slackening on the handle. Thelyss makes a lazy flicking motion and the weight on Caleb’s throat clamps down on his chest as well, forcing out what little air remains.

His vision is edging grey. There are tears on his face. The blade falls into Essek’s waiting, outstretched hand. Caleb hopes he cuts himself when it lands.

There is a single, sharp snap and the pressure drops. Caleb’s knees make quite the racket when they hit the floor. He can hear the sound of air moving into his lungs as if from a distant room.

“You’re a very interesting person, Widogast,” Thelyss says. “If I do not have to kill you before the day’s end, you will be quite the case study.”

Caleb crawls back to the bed on his hands and knees. When he sleeps, he does not dream.

* * *

The couple who run the inn have a son who has gone to Zadash to enlist in King Dwendal’s armies and left some of his old clothing behind. They refuse Essek’s coins after he spins them a tale of his companion’s poor luck on the road. Bandits have become much bolder on these country byways as of late, what with so many of the stout young men leaving for adventures in the east and soldier’s wages. Poor Widogast was lucky to escape with his sleep clothes.

Nothing fits, of course. But the woman lets down her son’s trouser hems and offers thick, handknit socks to help pad out his boots. It will do until they reach the city. The bath has been more transformative. When not covered in several layers of grime Widogast’s hair is coppery and curls at the ends. Even his eyes seem a clearer blue. A few more meals and a better outfit, and Essek might be able to be seen with him in public.

But first, there are more important considerations.

They find another wooded clearing, well off the main road. Essek knows it must be different thanks to the headache at the base of his skull that comes from hours of walking in Empire sunlight, but in arrangement it looks much the same as where they had first met. There are trees, then there are not. This one has a half-rotted stump where the former had a log. It's all terribly exciting.

“Alright,” he stops and folds his arms. “Show me what you can do.”

Widogast looks confused, then concerned, then very carefully blank.

“Surely the fire is not your only trick?” A man who escaped the Cerebus Assembly, even one so carelessly valued, cannot be stupid. Essek has to commend Widogast for his performance to the contrary. It is quite studied.

Widogast is quiet and still long enough that Essek being contemplating how several of his organs might fare against his own prepared spells. Eventually he plucks at the arm of his sweater. Like the rest of the innkeepers' clothing it is roughspun, clearly homemade. Years of steady wear have left a fine halo on the wool. It’s not difficult for him to gather a handful.

“Fleece, ja?” Widogast murmurs. It’s not clear if it is meant for other ears. His eyebrows knit and his teeth worry the inside of his cheek.

A tongue of flame appears in his palm, flickering somewhat unsteadily. When Essek passes a hand above, it gives off no heat. Widowgast’s mouth crooks up at the corner, edging towards a smirk.

“Very funny.” Essek reaches into an inside pocket, finds a bit of phosphorus and tosses it at his chest. It’s rather amusing watching him fumble with the illusory flame still burning in his palm. “Perhaps this will be of more use.”

Like his illusion, the orb of light isn’t quite correct at first. The glow is uneven, strobing slightly before it settles.

“When was the last time you cast?”

The traces of a smile still lingering on Widogast’s face fall away and his throat works in a swallow. When his eyes move, they don’t quite track the ball of light still floating in front of him. “Depends. What year is it?”

More and more interesting all the time, this one. “Eight hundred thirty.”

Essek is used to spending his days amongst the powerful and those who would become so. It is some time since he has seen someone let themselves so visibly crumple, even if only for a moment. Widogast’s hand snaps shut and the sad little light snuffs out.

“Fuck.” He turns, wanders a few steps away, then seems to lose the momentum.

“Well?”

Widogast laughs, low and strained, and pushes the heel of his palm hard against the space between his brows. “Give or take a few months? I would say it has been about eleven years.”

* * *

He had known. There are no mirrors in Vergessen, but the part of Caleb’s that is always on, logging the steady forward movement of time, has not felt right since he woke up to a woman going mad. There has been more since. The strange feel of his face under his hands, the new aches in his joints, the half-seen reflections glimpsed in spoons and inn windows he has tried to ignore.

Eleven years. He deserves worse. Caleb feels panic clawing up his throat nonetheless.

“That is one question answered I suppose,” Thelyss says, somewhere behind him.

Caleb had almost forgotten he was here. “What?”

“What they took from you.” With his illusion up, it’s hard to read his face. Not that Caleb is expecting sympathy. But it is comforting, in a way, to see the complete absence of pity. “You humans burn out so quickly. A decade must mean so much more to you.”

Caleb is halfway to correcting him before he stops himself. It hardly matters, does it? He is a tool. Why should Thelyss care if his hammer is more or less damned? “Ja.”

“They deserve to suffer, do they not?” Thelyss’ voice gentles, sweetens. It sounds strange on him. “For what they have taken, there is a debt owed. Pain to be paid for pain received. Do you agree?”

“I already told you I will help you.”

“And then you tried to stab me as I slept.” He smiles, almost fond. “I have many more important people to kill, Widogast. I do not wish to waste my time and energies on you. So I am asking one more time. What do you want?”

Caleb pictures a knife against skin, cutting spaces for crystals to go. A young woman’s face, placid and still as she picks a bottle of strong poison from a shelf. His mother’s hands, red and work roughened, cupping his face. Blood washed off in a rain barrel outside another small farmhouse. Sparks and smoke. Flames and char. Burning hay. He squeezes his eyes shut and streaks of light dance across the insides of his eyelids, but the images remain.

“Scorched earth.”

“What?” Thelyss asks. “Speak up.”

“What you said before,” Caleb says, and feels a strange, sudden calm overtake him. “We burn them out. To ash.”

“One more question,” Thelyss says. “Which one?”

He does not have to clarify. “Ikithon.”

“Unsurprising,” Thelyss says, and Caleb does and does not ever want to ask him what that means. “In that case, if it is possible, I will ensure he suffers before the end.”

“Sehr gut,” Caleb says, before he catches himself. “Good. Very good.”

“Then let us begin.” Thelyss slips a hand into a sudden slash in reality and retrieves a thick book bound in black leather. “We will have to find you something suitable in Rexxentrum. In the meantime,” he flips to a page filled with glyphs and formulations written in an even, flowing script, “this should be a suitable start.”

He starts to take the book, but it’s snatched back.

“You may read. I said nothing about holding.”

The simple pettiness of it is wonderful. This is the man he will almost certainly die with: Dangerous and manipulative and ridiculous. Caleb could almost laugh. Then he takes a closer look at the offered page and all else is forgotten. “What am I reading?”

“Arcanists in my home country specialize in the manipulation of gravitational forces and time. This spell focuses on the latter. We call it Fortune’s Favour,” Thelyss pauses, and a slow, satisfied smile spreads across his enchanted elven features. “It is going to infuriate so many people that you know this. Let us begin.”


	2. Vence Nuthaleus

“I hate this,” Widogast says from the doorway.

Essek looks up from the spell formula he has been toying with and immediately dissolves into laughter.

“Oh, ja. Ha ha ha. Laugh it up.” He crosses his arms across his chest and glares. It only makes everything worse. Essek can feel his eyes growing wet from the force of his amusement. Widogast’s once-red hair is now a deep, flat black. The colour is entirely wrong on him, highlighting the circles beneath his eyes and the hollows in his cheeks. If Essek had been thinking aesthetically he would have asked for a warm-toned colour. But the worst of it is—

“Eyebrows, Widogast,” Essek chokes out. The wizard’s own, still undyed, now seem fantastically red by contrast. Like curious little caterpillars glued to his face. It is the most pleasingly stupid thing he has seen in days.

Widogast mutters a string of syllables that sound deliciously filthy and retreats back into the inn’s bathing chamber to finish the job. When he emerges again the effect is still wholly terrible, but much more cohesive. With his most striking feature concealed and his farm clothes exchanged for simple traveling gear, Widogast could pass for any of the simple folk they’d seen in Rexxentrum's Mosaic Ward that afternoon, if slightly more displeasing. Essek doubts anyone who sees him before their business is concluded will look a second time, or find much to hang a memory on if they do.

“Better?”

“In some senses of the word, yes,” Essek says, ignoring the daggers Widogast is shooting at him with his eyes in favour of signalling to the innkeep to bring dinner. “Are we going to need to keep you clean shaven?”

“Lots of men have red beards,” Widogast says, glaring even harder, if such a thing is possible. “What is our next plan of action? I am sure you did not drag us all the way to the big city simply to finish making me over.”

“In good time.” The soup the inn’s tavern provides is interesting. Essek does not understand the Empire’s propensity for making its meals entirely one colour. The breads, however, he could get used to, particularly the ones with a pleasant sour tang to their crumb. Widogast eats sparingly. Which, for him, is at the rate of a person not held on inmate’s rations for much of his adult life. “You’re nervous.”

“Of course I am nervous,” Widogast says crossly around a mouthful of some sort of root vegetable. “No one wants to die with bad hair.”

“Oh, it makes jokes now,” Essek says, and Widogast bares his teeth at him.

Some decades ago, he had thought of purchasing a pet of some type to keep around the tower. At the time another creature had seemed too disruptive to his work and study. The more time he spends with Widogast, the more he is reconsidering. When this business has concluded and he is able to return home, he will have to investigate his options. A bird, perhaps. Something with a touch of red plumage, as an homage.

“Are you familiar with Vence Nuthaleus?” he asks somewhat later, with the relative safety of a closed door between them and interested ears.

Widogast shakes his head.

“Probably after you time,” Essek says. His companion does not quite hide a flinch. “He is the Annex to Master Da’leth. Keeper of his calendar and an intermediary to deal with the demands of time-wasting minor nobles and wizards of little repute. Probably not a position your former master maintained. I cannot imagine he has many social calls to keep track of.”

Widogast flinches harder at that second _master_. “And what do we want with him?”

“Only to ask a few questions,” Essek says. Da’leth and Ikithon have done their best to limit his contact with the Assembly’s membership, save for those directly involved in their bargain. Even DeRogna has remained largely out of view. Essek had seen the benefit of this, once. Now, there are other advantages and they are all one-sided. It is only by chance he passed Nuthaleus on the stairs during his surprise visit to Vergessen, and only luck that he did so when the other was sending his master a reminder of an upcoming audience with King Dwendal. In future, he would rather rely on neither.

“Where does he live?”

“We will find out shortly.” He brings thumb and forefinger together and when he pulls them apart a rift to his pocket dimension is floating in the space they once occupied. Essek draws the mirror out carefully, holding it with one edge balanced against each palm. “You know this city well.”

“Very.” Widogast has unconsciously led the way for much of the day. Asking is a formality.

“Then you are going to need to listen carefully to what I describe,” Essek says. “If we’re lucky, maybe he will be on the move. If not, we try again later.”

“And if it does not succeed?”

“We use tonight to dye your beard,” Essek says, just to goad him into making one of his faces again.

* * *

It takes them two days. Caleb spends his time copying spells into the small book they’d found secondhand and preventing Thelyss from buying more hair dye.

The man is a bastard. But his magic is beautiful. Caleb has not been allowed to flip ahead to the more advanced spells, but even in these few pages there is much to absorb. The theory resembles Empire magic just enough to throw the differences into stark relief. Caleb’s fingers itch with the desire to read on, to break this foreign system down to its components and revise from the ground up.

He does not seem to be the only one. Thelyss’ spell calligraphy is impeccable, but every margin is packed with tiny, cramped notation. During their second day’s breakfast, when Thelyss is distracted by the innkeep, Caleb steals a pinch each of salt and soot. When he places them under his tongue hours later, the Undercommon phrases dissolve into Zemnian compounds in his mind’s eye.

Some of it is practical: the dates spells were learned and the teachers and sources consulted. But more of it is theoretical: Suggestions for how one might decrease casting cost or do away with a verbal component. Alternate casting methods to achieve the same ends. Ideas for variations. Implications. If Caleb wants to remake dunamis from scratch, then Essek Thelyss has given him a recipe.

None of this makes sense. This man should be high in a tower somewhere, engaged in study. He should not be sitting in a mid-range inn in a foreign country plotting the murders of three of its most powerful wizards. Yet here they are, for however long enough they are lucky to keep their heads.

It is a shame. Had they both been different people, Caleb might have liked him.

“Widogast, pay attention.” Thelyss’ eyes are locked on the mirror, pupils darting back and forth intently.

“He is on the move?” He leans across the table, but of course there is nothing to see. The surface of the mirror is clouded, Thelyss’ face an indistinct shape in the fog of the spell.

“Leaving the Martinet’s tower. I recognize that silver stonework. Did you know he increases the height of it by a few inches every year? He is still waiting for the others to notice— ah, alright. He is passing another tower. Obsidian, perhaps?”

Caleb closes his eyes and pictures The Candles. Eight wizard towers surrounding castle Ungebroch at the northern tip of the Shimmer Ward. Once, in his early days at the Academy, he and Eodwulf and Astrid had done the loop of them, arguing amongst themselves about which they would choose when they became great wizards in their own right. Wulf had been partial to the black one.

There is a sudden, vivid image in his mind: Wulf’s hand outstretched, tracing the edge of a darkened spire where it cut the sky. A look on his face as if he could feel the stonework under his fingers, despite the gates and guards and the distance, seamless and sun-warmed against his palm.

“He is heading west,” Caleb says.

Vence Nuthaleus keeps a set of rooms in a gabled, blonde-wood building. It is somewhere near enough to the Solstryce Academy that Thelyss had glimpsed the school's ivory towers over one of his shoulders. The building has a fountain in its front garden featuring what sounds like it might be a peacock, and bushes of heavy-looking orange flowers line the walls, carefully obscuring a wrought iron fence. It would be better to have more to go on, but scrying is always an overly precise spell for this kind of work.

At least accessing the Shimmer Ward is not difficult. Thelyss exchanges his elven traveler for the guise of a human merchant, blond-bearded and round-bellied. Caleb follows behind, the dutiful servingman, carrying a stack of empty boxes and barrels that neatly obscures most of his face. A little bluster about an appointment with Lady So-and-So and they are in with a chance. The eyes of passersby slide across them in the street and move on. Some of the tension Caleb has been carrying eases, until they turn at the corner of a tree lined boulevard and the first ivory tower rises into view.

It will not be quite the same up close. The garden fashions have changed in Rexxentrum. There are more flowers now, coaxed up pillars and splayed across trellises with an air of carelessness, as though they have been left to run wild for years and not carefully laid by a well-paid master gardener. Once he is nearer, the greenery will provide a whole different effect, obscuring some fondly-remembered features and enhancing those that time has dimmed.

But from far away — it could be any year of the last thirteen, and Caleb would not know how to tell the difference.

“Keep up,” Thelyss says. His Zemnian accent is not bad, though there is some work to be done on the softer consonants. Caleb keeps up.

It takes several hours of circling the streets around the Academy before Thelyss gives a subtle nod in the direction of a nearby building. The layout of its front courtyard is difficult to make out through the dense orange flowers, but Caleb can hear running water when he strains his ears and sees a flash of something birdlike wrought in stone.

“Now what?” he asks under his breath.

Even the laneways that run behind homes are gated this far into the Shimmer Ward. Thelyss says something under his breath, and Caleb wants to clap a hand over his mouth, remind him that a knock spell won’t do them any good if it alerts every Crownsguard posted between them and the academy. But instead of the resonant boom he expects there is a soft, metallic snap as the lock collapses inwards, shearing the bolt in two. From one of his infinite pockets, Thelyss hands him a piece of copper wire.

“Now we wait.” The merchant illusion ripples, and Caleb is staring into the watery, light grey eyes of a young Dwendalian noble. “You watch the back. I will take the front.”

* * *

“It is seven o’clock,” Widowgast whispers into Essek’s ear. He has been sending such messages every hour on the hour since three that afternoon, not long after they had taken up their respective posts. They have not become more helpful over time.

“He will return sooner or later,” Essek hisses back, disguising the words as a cough. “Stop sending these messages.”

The command will do no more good than it had at six. One night when the human least expects it, Essek will dye Widogast’s bread in his sleep for this.

Another scrying spell would be pointless. Essek’s last, done in a nearby tavern, slumped over his wine cup in a pretend stupor, had shown Da’leth’s annex moving from one tedious meeting to another. Clearly, Nuthaleus’ morning trip home to change an ink-stained robe was uncharacteristically exciting. Essek would happily go the rest of his life without listening to another conversation about the cost of chalk, or the taxes on magical goods imported from the Menagerie Coast.

“He will hardly spend the night in his office,” Essek says into his own copper wire, unable to shake the feeling that Widogast is winning this exchange, somehow. “Every minor viscount in the city has surely invited him to supper. A man like that will know he must be seen in order to advance.”

“It is a quarter past seven,” Widogast whispers back. Essek will dye his beard and shave his head when this is through.

It is half past eight when Essek spots a figure in the distance hurrying in their direction with more than common speed. No doubt Nuthaleus’ final meeting with the Martinet to go over the next morning’s appointments has run long. The man will have to dress for his social calls with some haste.

“Widogast—” he starts, only to hear a voice in his ear. “Eight thirty five and the target is approaching from the north.”

“I hope you will enjoy life without eyebrows,” Essek murmurs back as he stumbles into the street, letting his head hang heavy as if with too much drink.

They meet at the street corner. Nuthaleus tries to veer around him, but Essek goes with him, forcing him to take a step sideways to avoid the collision. “Annex Nuthaleus?”

The man’s face shifts from apprehension to annoyance in the space of a heartbeat. “No appointments after hours.”

“Please, I must speak with you,” Essek drawls. There is a little too much Xhorhas in the accent, but the slur in his words should mask it. He takes another staggering step, forcing Nuthaleus to dodge him again. “My reputation depends upon it.”

“Your reputation would be better helped by a night in the king’s cells,” Nuthaleus snaps, dodging sideways as Essek makes a telegraphed grab for his sleeve.

Behind him, the laneway gate swings open on silent hinges.

Nuthaleus makes a motion in the air. The beginnings of a sending spell to the nearest Crownsguard post, no doubt. “Leave now and I shall allow you to keep your dignity.”

“I think not,” Essek says, in his own voice, and lets the spell he has been holding for the past minute flow freely. Nuthaleus’s eyes go wide as his limb stiffen and lock and only Essek’s hold on his arm keeps him from teetering sideways onto the cobbles. “Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private?”

The man looks slight, but he is surprisingly difficult to push. It’s only when Widogast darts from the alley and lifts him under his rigid arms that they are able to make any progress. If more kidnapping of this nature is required, perhaps they will need to invest in one of those wheeled contraptions he has seen merchants use to drag their heavier wares from place to place.

“What if someone had come by just now?” Widogast hisses at him as they ease the body to the ground out of view of prying eyes.

“Be glad they didn’t,” Essek snaps back. He lets Nuthaleus’ feet drop out of spite and Widogast staggers and narrowly avoids bashing the man’s head against a fence rail. “Close the gate and keep watch.”

“Oh, now we are concerned with watching…” Widogast mumbles. “You know, servants use this passage too.”

“Then we’ll be quick.” He does not point out they would already be further ahead if he did not have to respond to this argument. “We will try the sweet approach first.”

The adder’s tongue and almond oil are already mixed together in a glass vial. Essek crushes it between his fingers and Nuthaleus’ arms flop to the ground as the hold on him loosens. “A suggestion, friend.”

“On with it, then,” Nuthaleus sits up slowly, rubbing at one ankle. “I have dinner plans.”

“Your master is conducting a research project with two of his fellows. Masters Trent Ikithon and Vess DeRogna,” Essek says. Nuthaleus glares, sullen. Well, if he’d wanted to be liked by this man, he would have tried a different spell. “I require that you tell me where it is they go to conduct their works.”

Nuthaleus sighs, as put upon as if Essek were a minor lordling begging for a slice of the Solstryce Academy’s paper trade. A slim notebook appears in his hand, conjured from nowhere. “Surely Vergessen is the most likely spot—”

“Not there.” _Being tested in the field_ , Ikithon had said, when Essek had arrived to dissolve their bargain and demand the return of what it is rightfully his. And while the man is a liar and cheat all the way through, there had been a perverse glee in his voice that made the words ring true. “Somewhere farther from the city. Where does the Martinet travel as of late? What places catch his interest?”

“Felderwin,” Nuthaleus says. “I have arranged shipments on his behalf. Paper and gem dust. And many pounds of chalk.”

Essek flashes back to the meetings he's witnessed over the course of the day. The chalk merchant had described the many hazards of the Amber Road in detail as the argument over shipment costs escalated. _The Martinet expects his supplies to arrive swiftly_ , Nuthaleus had said, with practiced boredom, _if you are unable to provide the services stipulated in your contract—_

He had assumed goods were flowing into the city, but if they are headed another way… “Widogast, what do you know of Felderwin?”

“Closer to your territory, I think,” Widogast says after a moment’s thought. “It’s somewhere near the Ashkeepers.”

Of course. _Of course_. He knows what these humans think of him. It should not startle him, when they mock him to his face.

“Thank you for your help, good sir,” he gathers as much of his remaining power as he dares into a single formulation and touches Vence Nuthaleus gently on the forehead, between the eyes. “Now, I must help you up from your terrible fall. Surely there is some abode to which I can escort you?”

The sour look dissolves and Nuthaleus offers him a confused, embarrassed smile. “Thank _you_ , sir. It’s not like me to be so clumsy.”

“Alas, I fear street maintenance is not what it once was in this ward,” Essek says, offering a hand up with a courtly flourish. “Not but a week past a good cousin of mine was felled by a loose stone in front of his favourite tavern. Had he not been well in his cups, the damage might have been severe. You, of course, will want to rest that ankle.”

Widogast watches them limp away in silence.

* * *

Thelyss’ back hits the stone wall with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. He does not have time to find it anew before Caleb is on him, pushing through the illusion of the round-bellied trader to seize the man by the shirtfront and shake him. “How many times?”

They can’t be more than a few blocks from the inn. A few minutes more and he could have started this fight in a more secluded setting. But the thread that tethers Caleb’s patience is thin and frayed under the best of circumstances. It could simply not withstand it, when the man started whistling. Like a carefree schoolboy, confident after sitting his exams, rather than someone who has—

“Widogast, what are you doing?” Even winded, he remains the same. Arch and amused and infuriating. Caleb can feel phantom heat lick across his palms, has to swallow down the urge to burn that ironic smile off his face.

“I want to know how many times you have cast that spell.” He can feel his lips pull back into a snarl.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Thelyss’ hands close over his wrists and Caleb shoves him hard again. It seems to take him by as much surprise the second time, judging by the way his head rocks on his neck, ricocheting off the stonework with a painful-sounding thud.

“You reached into that man’s head and you — you moved the pieces around.” His own heart is pumping in his throat. “You did it as if it were nothing.”

Thelyss tries to shift sideways and Caleb goes with him, never breaking his hold. It’s the same again in the opposite direction. He was a much better fighter when he was pretending to be staggering drunk. 

“I do not know what you want from me Widogast,” Thelyss hisses as his hands scrabble for Caleb’s throat. He bobs away and the illusory merchant’s stubby fingers close on air. “If you wished to kill Nuthaleus as well, you should have informed me before we set out.”

“You know that is not what I mean.” At the mouth of the alleyway, someone pauses and peers in their direction. Caleb tries to angle his body to cover the struggle. Too slow. The moment of distraction gives Thelyss an opening.

The drow is not a talented hand-to-hand combatant, but it does not take so much finesse to knee another man in the balls. Caleb drops.

“All well down there?” a voice calls. “Shall I get the Crownsguard?”

“Merely a misunderstanding, friend,” Thelyss shouts back. “I thank you for your concern.”

There is a long moment of quiet, save for the high pitched ringing in Caleb’s ears. Finally, Thelyss drops to a crouch next to him. “Now, what was it you wished to know?"

“How,” his voice breaks. Caleb wets his lips and tries again. “How many times have you done that to me?”

Thelyss looks blank.

“Gone into my head and rearranged the furnishings.” His eyes feel wet. He tries a glare anyway. “Don’t lie to me. I will know.”

“Why in the world would I want to go any deeper into a head like yours, Widogast?” Thelyss asks. “The spell is distasteful, but a corpse would be far more difficult to plan around. I would hope even you could see as much.”

He stands and extends a hand up. Caleb ignores it.

Much later, as he lies in his narrow bed at the inn, Thelyss’ voice floats softly through the darkness, “I wonder, would it trouble you more or less to know all your choices since we’ve met are your own?”

Caleb turns his face to the wall and pretends at sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about that lag between chapters. Social distancing and work-from-home fucked my productivity for a bit there.
> 
> Next time: Roadtrip!


End file.
